🐶 POTM ENTER NOW - November 2024 Pet of the Month Contest

Please enter now!

Ladies and Gents, Boys and Girls, all our fish lovers around the world: It's time for our exciting and very popular Pet of the Month Contest!

If you have a pet in your household (no fish allowed) we encourage you to enter it in our Pet of the Month contest.

RULES:
A picture uploaded via our "attach files" tool with a handwritten note held in front of your pet with "November 2024 TFF POTM" written on it is required to validate your entry. If you wish, you may post a second picture without the note attached. If you post 2 pics, only the one without the note will be in the poll. Right under the pictures, post any details about your pet such as name, age, how you got your pet, what you feed it, tricks and unique traits and anything else you'd like to share.

• If you won a POTM contest previously, you must skip at least 1 POTM contest before you can enter a different pet.
• A detailed description is required!
• Entries will be accepted till 4 pm ET (US) on November 21st or when we have 12 entrants...whichever comes first. Any entrant who posts an entry after we have 12 entrants will be asked to enter the next POTM contest and their post will be deleted. The winner will be decided by votes cast by FishForums.net members.
• Please note: you are not allowed to have friends or family join TFF for the main purpose of voting for your entry

What do I win?

• You will get a cool banner in your profile area noting that you are a winner of Pet of the Month.
• Your winning entry will be showcased in a "POTM Winner" topic for all to see and to comment.
• Your winning entry will be added to our POTM Wall of Fame

Please don’t post any opinions about any specific entry. Such posts will be promptly deleted. Thread will be cleaned up occasionally for readability.

Who will be the first to enter the contest?

This is my queen (green arrow) camponotus castaneus, common name: chestnut carpenter ant. This ant is native to Eastern North America, but is only found in Canada on Pelee Island in Lake Erie and in Point Pelee National Park. As such, collection is illegal in the park and most folks aren't taking the ferry to the island unless they live out that way, the only way to obtain this ant in Canada is to purchase it from a reputable source that has import permits from places in the USA. This colony was purchased in such a way. I spent a whole summer collecting wild native ants to send in as a supply to the shop and did a trade in for this lady. Selling queen ants seasonally kept our heads above water during the pandemic when both my husband and I were out of work, and now it has evolved into a hobby for myself as well.
She has the potential to live over 20 years, but more likely less. Her workers may only live 1.5 years tops.
Ants are an interesting pet, I have many colonies, but this lady is my favourite. Unlike most carpenter ants, this species nests mostly in soil and requires more humidity to survive in captivity than other species, but also given that she's a more southern species, hibernation isn't as strict as with the more abundant northern species in my area who require 5°C temperatures for 3 months in order to live longterm. Instead, she is taken off of heat for 2 weeks during winter and fed less protein during this time as a short diapause rather than a full blown hibernation period.
She is fed by her workers, she never leaves her nest. In fact, after workers hatch many queens do not even care for their own brood. They let their workers do all the work while they simply lay eggs every day. She is no exception to this, though she is more attentive to her workers than some other queens I have. She does interact more with them.
They are fed a daily supply of sugar water available 24/7 in a gravity liquid feeder in an outside part of their home and once or twice a week they get a protein source food, usually a cricket or mealworm. Sometimes other wild insects depending on what is seasonally available. They are very fond of mosquitoes.
This species must be kept warm, mine stay on a heat mat at 26-28°C all year round with exception of their short winter diapause.
Ants make great pets for those with space constraints or want a relatively low maintenance pet for an office desk. Starting colonies requires patience, but they'll grow in time and it's fun watching how they interact with one another and show very caring behaviors towards their own colony.


Validation picture:

Sadie, aka Sassy Sadie the Alligator, was adopted from a Houston shelter as a pup. Her whole litter had been turned in at 6 weeks. When the adopter moved and could not keep Sadie at his Aunt's house she was 13 weeks old and she came to me. She is said to be a Border Collie / Labrador mix. She is now about 16 weeks old and paper is a favorite snack.

Here's our Rocco...
Rocco is a Meyer's parrot which roots originate from Africa. It's one of the few wild parrots in Africa that has the same build as an amazon parrot. This species is small in size. Males tend to become bigger than the females. Males have also more yellow on the front of the wings and head than the females have. And the color of their feet differ in both sexes. She was in anest of three and I chose the most cheeky one. For the cheeky ones can be taught much more...
Although, Rocco is a boy's name, Rocco is a female. For this type of parrot takes about a year till a year and a half before they'll show their real sex. But in the meantime, she needed a name. And Rocco was the first name that popped in mind.
She's got a turquoise color on her back and belly area. This turquoise flows into a shade of green on the body in the direction of her throat area. Like most short tailed parrots, these birds are more climbers than flyers.
Rocco is 23 years old by now. They're known to reach ages of 40. She screams more when new female visitors are around. But with male visitors, she's calm. This species is not known for being well speakers. But she does say some words. Unfortunately, not on command.
I had another one. An older brother of hers, named Mikey. Unfortunately, he has died a number of years ago. He imitated much more sounds, like the cooling of my fridge, knocking on the door sound (which made me realize that a lot of people have knocked on my door when I was at work) for instance.
These birds are very intelligent. The remark that has to be made is that these types of parrots choose just one particular person to be real friends with. In this case: me...

This photo also made me realize to dust a bit more often...
This photo was taken when she flew on top of the chandelier... And watched me wwhat I was doing...

I'm willing to be someone's pet for a month if you need to take a picture of something to post in this thread....

Thats three entries. We only have a few days left, so please enter soon.

This is Miss Chungus. She's a 2.5 year old hen who will sit on my lap for hours given the opportunity. She got her name because she rapidly grew to twice the size of all the other chicks she was raised with, so I thought she was going to be massive. Then she taught me you can't use early growth rates to make that kind of guess and reached a distinctly medium final size lol many of my other chickens over time have ended up bigger. But, she knows her name and so Chungus she remains. Every morning I go outside, rain or shine, and have a cup of coffee with her flock. She spends most of that time on my lap and likes to lick the occasional coffee drip from my mug. Then she tries to convince me to take her into the house and have a second cup of coffee with just her sitting on the couch with me so she doesn't have to compete for attention with any other chickens - and she often wins. She has a son and a daughter who both inherited her riddiculous gregariousness and love of people.

She was not fond of the TFF sign and kept wanting to run behind me when I set it down...I had to bribe her with a grape.

We have a nice variety of pets entered in this contest...a parrot , a doggie , an ant , and a chicken . We have just a couple of days till polling starts. We haven't had a frog or cat enter in this potm contest yet. Your pet wants to be in this contest but it needs your help to enter. If you have a pet, enter it soon.

I am extending entry by 24 hours in the hope of more participation. If you have a pet you have not entered before, please enter today. Time is running out.

This is Ari. She is an approximately two-year old a Russian Blue. We got her from a shelter in August, and she has been a good buddy to tide Mrs. Badger through hunting season. This picture shows her reaction to the Hallmark Christmas movie that Mrs. Badger was watching.

At last, I agree with a cat on something.

Now that we have a cat entered, we're looking for a frog . Any frogs out there?

Fishmanic said:

Now that we have a cat entered, we're looking for a frog . Any frogs out there?

Click to expand...

I thought about entering my frog, but I liked the picture of the cat cringe too much.